When you talk to Keith Myers and Tim Schmal­enberger about their business strategy, one quickly realizes they know more about mixing residential and commercial properties in an urban district than planning the direction of their company.

"We're basically design guys," says Myers, "so we keep the business side simple."

But after more than 17 years together, their Myers/Schmalenberger Inc. firm has managed to grow from a two-person collaboration to a staff of 60, working from their home office in the Brewery District and regional offices near Disney World in Florida and Hollywood, Calif. The company has grown due to a combination of good design, an appetite for talent and building long-term relationships with developers who offer high-profile projects that spur even more business.

"We try to get involved with the biggest and neatest projects," Myers says. "If you get the right projects, you attract the best talent."

Trading places

Myers and Schmalenberger have grown their reputation in Columbus through such projects as the master plan for the Arena District and the Scioto River downtown waterfront area.

But the firm also has expanded into resorts and theme parks in the last seven years through professional and personal connections.

The architecture design and planning firm's November 2006 expansion into Los Angeles demonstrates the point.

Myers/Schmalenberger expanded into the entertainment market through a merger with Pasadena, Calif.-based Wyatt Design Group Inc. , a firm that specializes in master plans and landscape designs for theme parks, water parks, museums and other exhibit-oriented projects.

Wyatt Design principal Larry Wyatt, formerly of Cincinnati, said he and Myers worked together in the late 1970s on a project at the Kings Island amusement park before he moved to California. The two had other ventures, including a project for the Six Flags chain of amusement parks.

"We've kept in touch off an on over the years," says Wyatt, who worked on overseas projects for Warner Brothers Entertainment Inc. prior to starting his own firm in 1999.

The impetus for the merger with Myers/Schmalenberger came after Wyatt landed the Jungala animal park addition to Busch Entertainment Corp.'s Busch Gardens in Orlando, Fla.

"We had been talking for years (about a merger)," Wyatt says. "We were getting busy so the timing seemed right."

The Pasadena office, which had a staff of two at the time of the merger, now has 12.

Myers called the merger a "people-based decision" resulting in strengthening the firm's prowess in the entertainment market.

"We're sort of talent junkies," he says. "We just like talent and we like to collect it."

Fate steps in

An earlier merger also shows Myers/Schmalenger's good fortune of finding the right talent to match a goal to expand into new markets.

In late 1999, the company enticed Greg Meyer and Keith Bongirno of Winter Park, Fla., near Orlando to combine their Meyer Bongirno & Craig Inc. landscape design firm into Myers Schmalenberger.

Bongirno had earlier made a connection to MSI through friends and family as he sought to relocate to Columbus to be closer to his wife's family. Schmalenberger said it became clear the two design firms had similar professional and life values.

"We knew that (the firm principals) had a nice practice going on in Orlando," Schmalenberger says. "They fit personality-wise."

That MSI office has a staff of 15 compared with the 40 employees in the Brewery District office, where it still handles about half of the firm's workload.

Although Schmalenberger said the firm was not looking for merger candidates, the Florida firm did extensive work in the hotel and resort market that Myers and Schmalenberger had identified as an avenue for growth.

"We just didn't have the introductions to get into it," he says of the resort market. "Immediately (after the merger), the larger projects began to flow."

Work on resorts and other projects through the Orlando office now accounts for about 30 percent of the firm's overall work.

Much of that stems from the interest of companies such as Hilton Corp. and Marriott Corp. to expand their vacation destinations.

"A lot of the hotel chains are expanding into vacation clubs," Schmalenberger says, "so they keep building more and more resorts."

Getting to know you

Getting into urban design in the mid-1990s took a bit more for the partners, who declined to reveal their revenue figures.

The company had its eyes on the Arena District project by Nationwide Realty Investors Ltd., a division of Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. that had recently hired Brian Ellis to build a mixed-used commercial and residential neighborhood around Nationwide Arena.

When Ellis began interviewing firms for the work, Myers left little doubt with the executive that he really wanted the assignment to create the master plan.

"Keith came into my office and said, 'Brian, you have to give me that assignment,'" recalls Ellis, the development firm's president and chief operating officer. " 'I think that will be the most important project in my life.' "

Despite the plea, Ellis still interviewed other planning firms. One strike against MSI was it had just worked on the city's plan for development along the Scioto River through downtown.

"It had occurred to me it would make sense to have a little creative tension between the riverfront and the Arena District," Ellis says.

In the end, MSI got the design contract from Nationwide Realty, in large part because of the enthusiasm Myers expressed.

"He was extraordinarily committed to giving us the firm's best possible work," Ellis says. "That kind of commitment is rare.

Myers said the relationships in the architectural community and its developer contacts have proven invaluable in keeping design work coming in.

"It's definitely easier now that we have a body of work to show," says Myers.

Nationwide Realty regularly invites Myers Schmalenberger to compete for projects since its work on the Arena District.

That includes design work on the Huntington Park ball park under construction for the Columbus Clippers baseball franchise in the Arena District. Nationwide Realty has also selected the firm for masterplanning of the 85-acre Grandview Yard redevelopment of the former Big Bear Stores Co. warehouse and office complex in nearby Grandview Heights.

"MSI will touch almost anything we do," says Ellis. "They're almost an extension of our team."

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